This is the original manuscript of How It Works. I've provided
it only for your information. You'll find some of the wording very interesting.

HOW IT WORKS

Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our directions.
Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves
to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable
of being honest with themselves. There are such unfortunates. They are not at
fault; they seem to have been born that way. They are naturally incapable of
grasping and developing a way of life which demands rigorous honesty. Their
chances are less than average. There are those, too, who suffer from grave emotional
and mental disorders, but many of them do recover if they have the capacity
to be honest.

Our stories disclose in a general way what we used to be like, what happened,
and what we are like now. If you have decided you want what we have and are
willing to go to any length to get it -then you are ready to follow directions.

At some of these you may balk. You may think you can find an easier, softer
way. We doubt if you can. With all the earnestness at our command, we beg of
you to be fearless and thorough from the very start. Some of us have tried to
hold on to our old ideas and the result was nil until we let go absolutely.

Remember that you are dealing with alcohol - cunning, baffling, powerful! Without
help it is too much for you. But there is One who has all power - That One is
God. You must find Him now!

Half measures will avail you nothing. You stand at the turning point. Throw
yourself under His protection and care with complete abandon.

Now we think you can take it! Here are the steps we took, which are suggested
as your Program of Recovery:

1. Admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to
sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care and direction
of God as we understood Him.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature
of our wrongs.

6. Were entirely willing that God remove all these defects of character.

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make complete
amends to them all.

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so
would injure them or others.

10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted
it.

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our contact with God, praying
only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

12. Having had a spiritual experience as the result of this course of action,
we tried to carry this message to others, especially alcoholics, and to practice
these principles in all our affairs.

You may exclaim, "What an order! I can't go through with it." Do
not be discouraged. No one among us has been able to maintain anything like
perfect adherence to these principles. We are not saints. The point is, that
we are willing to grow along spiritual lines. The principles we have set down
are guides to progress. We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection.

Our description of the alcoholic, the chapter to the agnostic, and our personal
adventures before and after, have been designed to sell you three pertinent
ideas:

(a) That you are alcoholic and cannot manage your own life.

(b) That probably no human power can relieve your alcoholism.

(c) That God can and will.

If you are not convinced on these vital issues, you ought to re-read the book
to this point or else throw it away!

If you are convinced, you are now at step three, which is that you make a decision
to turn your will and your life over to God as you understand Him. Just what
do we mean by that, and just what do we do?

The first requirement is that you see that any life run on self-will can hardly
be a success. On that basis we are almost always in collision with something
or somebody, even though our motives may be good. Most people try to live by
self-propulsion. Each person is like an actor who wants to run the whole show:
is forever trying to arrange the lights, the ballet, the scenery and the rest
of the players in his own way. If his arrangements would only stay put, if only
people would do as he wishes, the show would be great. Everybody, including
himself, would be pleased. Life would be wonderful. In trying to make these
arrangements our actor may sometimes be quite virtuous. He may be kind, considerate,
patient, generous; even modest and self-sacrificing. On the other hand, he may
be mean, egotistical, selfish and dishonest. But, as with most humans, he is
more likely to have varied traits.

What usually happens? The show doesn't come off very well. He begins to think
life doesn't treat him right. He decides to exert himself some more. He becomes,
on the next occasion, still more demanding or gracious, as the case may be.
Still the play does not suit him. Admitting he may be somewhat at fault, he
is sure that other people are more to blame. He becomes angry, indignant, self-pitying.
What is his basic trouble? Is he not really a self-seeker even when trying to
be kind? Is he not a victim of the delusion that he can wrest satisfaction and
happiness out of this world if he only manages well? Is it not evident to all
the rest of the players that these are the things he wants? And do not his actions
make each of them wish to retaliate, snatching all they can get out of the show?
Is he not, even in his best moments, a producer of confusion rather than harmony?

Our actor is self-centered - ego-centric, as people like to call it nowadays.
He is like the retired business man who lolls in the Florida sunshine in the
winter complaining of the sad state of the nation; the preacher who sighs over
the sins of the twentieth century; politicians and reformers who are sure all
would be Utopia if the rest of the world would only behave; the outlaw safe
cracker who thinks society has wronged him; and the alcoholic who has lost all
and is locked up. Whatever their protestations, are not these people mostly
concerned with themselves, their resentments, or their self-pity?

Selfishness - self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles.
Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity,
we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate. Sometimes they hurt us,
seemingly, without provocation, but we invariably find that at some time in
the past we have made decisions based on self, which later placed us in a position
to be hurt.

So our troubles, we think, are basically of our own making. They arise out
of ourselves, and the alcoholic is almost the most extreme example that could
be found of self-will run riot, though he usually doesn't think so. Above everything,
we alcoholics must be rid of this selfishness. We must, or it kills us! God
makes that possible. And there is no way of entirely getting rid of self without
Him. You may have moral and philosophical convictions galore, but you can't
live up to them even though you would like to. Neither can you reduce your self-centeredness
much by wishing or trying on your own power. You must have God's help.

This is the how and why of it. First of all, quit playing God yourself. It
doesn't work. Next, decide that hereafter in this drama of life, God is going
to by your Director. He is the Principal; you are to be His agent. He is the
Father, and you are His child. Get that simple relationship straight. Most good
ideas are simple and this concept is to be the keystone of the new and triumphant
arch through which you will pass to freedom.

When you sincerely take such a position, all sorts of remarkable things follow.
You have a new Employer. Being all powerful, He must necessarily provide what
you need, if you keep close to Him and perform His work well. Established on
such a footing you become less and less interested in yourself, your little
plans and designs. More and more you become interested in seeing what you can
contribute to life. As you feel new power flow in, as you enjoy peace of mind,
as you discover you can face life successfully, as you become conscious of His
presence, you begin to lose your fear of today, tomorrow, or the hereafter.
You will have been reborn.

Get down upon your knees and say to your Maker, as you understand Him:
"God, I offer myself to Thee - to build with me and to do with me as Thou
wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. Take
away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would
help of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of life. May I do Thy will always!"
Think well before taking this step. Be sure you are ready; that you can at last
abandon yourself utterly to Him.

It is very desirable that you make your decision with an understanding person.
It may be your wife, your best friend, your spiritual adviser, but remember
it is better to meet God alone that with one who might misunderstand.
You must decide this for yourself. The wording of your decision is, of course,
quite optional so long as you express the idea, voicing it without reservation.
This decision is only a beginning, though if honestly and humbly made, an effect,
sometimes a very great one, will be felt at once.

Next we launch out on a course of vigorous action, the first step of which
is a personal housecleaning, which you have never in all probability attempted.
Though your decision is a vital and crucial step, it can have little permanent
effect unless at once followed by a strenuous effort to face, and to be rid
of, the things in yourself which have been blocking you. Your liquor is but
a symptom. Let's now get down to basic causes and conditions.

Therefore, you start upon a personal inventory. This is step four. A
business which takes no regular inventory usually goes broke. Taking a commercial
inventory is a fact-finding and a fact-facing process. It is an effort to discover
the truth about the stock-in-trade. Its object is to disclose damaged or unsalable
goods, to get rid of them promptly and without regret. If the owner of the business
is to be successful, he cannot fool himself about values.

We do exactly the same thing with our lives. We take stock honestly. First,
we search out the flaws in our make-up which have caused our failure. Being
convinced that self, manifested in various ways, is what has defeated us, we
consider its common manifestations.

Resentment is the "number one" offender. It destroys more alcoholics
than anything else. From it stem all forms of spiritual disease, for we have
been not only mentally and physically ill, we have been spiritually sick. When
the spiritual malady is overcome, we straighten out mentally and physically.
In dealing with resentments, we set them on paper. List people, institutions
or principles with whom you are angry. Ask yourself why you are angry. In most
cases it will be found that your self-esteem, your pocketbook, your ambitions,
your personal relationships, (including sex) are hurt or threatened. So you
are sore. You are "burned up."

On your grudge list set opposite each name your injuries. Is it your self-esteem,
your security, your ambitions, your personal, or your sex relations, which have
been interfered with?

Go on through the list back through your lifetime. Nothing counts but thoroughness
and honesty. When you are finished consider it carefully. The first thing apparent
to you is that this world and its people are often quite wrong. To conclude
that others are wrong is as far as most of us ever get. The usual outcome is
that people continue to wrong you and you stay sore. Sometimes it is remorse
and then you are sore at yourself. But the more you fight and try to have your
way, the worse matters get. Isn't that so? As in war, victors only seem
to win. Your moments of triumph are short-lived.

It is plain that a way of life which includes deep resentment leads only to
futility and unhappiness. To the precise extent that we permit these, do we
squander the hours that might have been worth while. But with the alcoholic
whose only hope is the maintenance and growth of a spiritual experience, this
business of resentment is infinitely grave. We find that it is fatal. For when
harboring such feelings we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the Spirit.
The insanity of alcohol returns and we drink again. And with us, to drink is
to die.

If we are to live, we must be free of anger. The grouch and the brainstorm
are not for us. They may be the dubious luxury of normal men, but for alcoholics
these things are poison.

Turn back to your list, for it holds the key to your future. You must be prepared
to look at it from an entirely different angle. You will begin to see that the
world and its people really dominate you. In your present state, the wrongdoing
of others, fancied or real, has power to actually kill you. How shall you escape?
You see that these resentments must be mastered, but how? You cannot wish them
away any more than alcohol.

This is our course: realize at once that the people who wrong you are spiritually
sick. Though you don't like their symptoms and the way these disturb you, they,
like yourself, are sick, too. Ask God to help you show them the same tolerance,
pity, and patience that you would cheerfully grant a friend who has cancer.
When a person next offends, say to yourself "This is a sick man. How can
I be helpful to him? God save me from being angry. Thy will be done."

Never argue. Never retaliate. You wouldn't treat sick people that way. If you
do, you destroy your chance of being helpful. You cannot be helpful to all people,
but at least God will show you how to take a kindly and tolerant view of each
and every one.

Take up your list again. Putting out of your mind the wrongs others have done,
resolutely look for your own mistakes. Where have you been selfish, dishonest,
self-seeking and frightened? Though a situation may not be entirely your fault,
disregard the other person involved entirely. See where you have been
to blame. This is your inventory, not the other man's. When you see your fault
write it down on the list. See it before you in black and white. Admit your
wrongs honestly and be willing to set these matters straight.

You will notice that the word fear is bracketed alongside the difficulties
with Mr. Brown, Mrs. Jones, your employer, and your wife. This short word somehow
touches about every aspect of our lives. It is an evil and corroding thread;
the fabric of our existence is shot through with it. It sets in motion trains
of circumstances which bring us misfortune we feel we don't deserve. But did
not we, ourselves, set the ball rolling? Sometimes we think fear ought to be
classed with stealing as a sin. It seems to cause more trouble.

Review your fears thoroughly. Put them on paper, even though you have no resentment
in connection with them. Ask yourself why you have them. Isn't it because self-reliance
has failed you? Self-reliance was good as far as it went, but it didn't go far
enough. Some of us once had great self-confidence, but it didn't fully solve
the fear problem, or any other. When it made us cocky, it was worse.

Perhaps there is a better way - we think so. For you are now to go on a different
basis; the basis of trusting and relying upon God. You are to trust infinite
God rather than your finite self. You are in the world to play the role he assigns.
Just to the extent that you do as you think He would have you, and humbly rely
on Him, does He enable you to match calamity with serenity.

You must never apologize to anyone for depending upon your Creator. You can
laugh at those who think spirituality the way of weakness. Paradoxically, it
is the way of strength. The verdict of the ages is that faith means courage.
All men of faith have courage. They trust their God. Never apologize for God.
Instead let Him demonstrate, through you, what He can do. Ask Him to remove
your fear and direct your attention to what He would have you be. At once, you
will commence to outgrow fear.

Now about sex. You can probably stand an overhauling there. We needed it. But
above all, let's be sensible on this question. It's so easy to get way off the
track. Here we find human opinions running to extremes - absurd extremes, perhaps.
One set of voices cry that sex is a lust of our lower nature, a base necessity
of procreation. Then we have the voices who cry for sex and more sex; who bewail
the institution of marriage; who think that most of the troubles of the race
are traceable to sex causes. They think we do not have enough of it, or that
it isn't the right kind. They see its significance everywhere. One school would
allow man no flavor for his fare and the other would have us all on a straight
pepper diet. We want to stay out of this controversy. We do not want to be the
arbiter of anyone's sex conduct. We all have sex problems. We'd hardly be human
if we didn't. What can we do about them?

Review your own conduct over the years past. Where have you been selfish, dishonest,
or inconsiderate? Whom did you hurt? Did you unjustifiably arouse jealousy,
suspicion or bitterness? Where you were at fault, what should you have done
instead? Get this all down on paper and look at it.

In this way you can shape a sane and sound ideal for your future sex life.
Subject each relation to this test - is it selfish or not? Ask God to mould
your ideals and help you to live up to them. Remember always that your sex powers
are God-given, and therefore good, neither to be used lightly or selfishly nor
to be despised and loathed.

Whatever your ideal may be, you must be willing to grow toward it. You must
be willing to make amends where you have done harm, provided that you will not
bring about still more harm in so doing. In other words, treat sex as you would
any other problem. In meditation, ask God what you should do about each specific
matter. The right answer will come, if you want it.

God alone can judge your sex situation. Counsel with persons is often desirable,
but let God be the final judge. Remember that some people are as fanatical about
sex as others are loose. Avoid hysterical thinking or advice.

Suppose you fall short of the chosen ideal and stumble. Does this mean you
are going to get drunk? Some people will tell you so. If they do, it will be
only a half-truth. It depends on you and your motive. If you are sorry for what
you have done, and have the honest desire to let God take you to better things,
you will be forgiven and will have learned your lesson. If you are not sorry,
and your conduct continues to harm others, you are quite sure to drink. We are
not theorizing. These are facts out of our experience.

To sum up about sex: earnestly pray for the right ideal, for guidance in each
questionable situation, for sanity, and for the strength to do the right thing.
If sex is very troublesome, throw yourself the harder into helping others. Think
of their needs and work for them. This will take you out of yourself. It will
quiet the imperious urge, when to yield would mean heartache.

If you have been thorough about your personal inventory, you have written down
a lot by this time. You have listed and analyzed your resentments. You have
begun to comprehend their futility and their fatality. You have commenced to
see their terrible destructiveness. You have begun to learn tolerance, patience
and good will toward all men, even your enemies, for you know them to be sick
people. You have listed the people you have hurt by your conduct, and you are
willing to straighten out the past if you can.

In this book you read again and again that God did for us what we could not
do for ourselves. We hope you are convinced now that He can remove the self-will
that has blocked you off from Him. You have made your decision. You have made
an inventory of the grosser handicaps you have. You have made a good beginning,
for you have swallowed and digested some big chunks of truth about yourself.
Are you willing to go on?